Academic
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Title: Behind Great Walls: Tolerated illegal migration and the construction industry Based on intensive ethnographic observation of illegal migrant labor
in the construction industry in China, this dissertation analyses the
interconnected patterns of labor markets and employment relations experienced
by these workers in two cities, Beijing and Guangzhou. I identify three
such patterns, which I refer to as “modes of employment”:
embedded, mediated, and individualized. In embedded employment, social
networks shape access to jobs and employment relations on the job. In
mediated employment, labor contractors play a key role in regulating both
the labor market and employment relations in various ways. In individualized
employment, workers find employment through unregulated spot markets and
are inserted into employment relations as separate individuals rather
than as members of a migrant enclave social network or as dependants of
a labor contractor. I show how, along with gender and locality/ethnicity,
these modes of employment powerfully shape the migration experience and
move the boundaries of toleration. In both Beijing and Guangzhou, all
three of these modes of employment are present among illegal migrant labor
in the construction industry. However, in Beijing, the majority of workers
are concentrated in mediated employment while in Guangzhou the majority
of workers are concentrated in embedded employment. I argue that this
variation between the cities is the result of the different levels and
types of state regulation of both the labor market and the migrant population. |
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2002 |
Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Chinese American Center, Chinese Language Study Summer Immersion Program, Nanjing, China. Summer 2002 |
2000 |
Cornell University, School of Industrial Labor Relations, Ithaca, NY Masters of Science in Industrial Labor Relations, August 2000 |
1994 |
Saint Michaels College, Colchester, VT Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, With Distinction, May 1994 |
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Research |
Sociology of Work and Labor, Gender, Global Inequality and Immigration, Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Movements, Asian Studies |
Publications/ 2006
2007
2002
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Swider, Sarah. 2006. “Working Women of the World Unite? Labor organizing and transnational gender solidarity among domestic workers in Hong Kong” pp. 110-140, in Global Feminism: Women’s Transnational Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Mari Tripp (NYU Press). Swider, Sarah. Book review: Shahid Yusuf, Kaoru Mabeshima, Dwight Perkins,
Lillie, Nathan and Sarah Swider. 1999 "Trends and Developments in Transnational Labor Cooperation in North America”, commissioned report to the International Labour Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1998. |
| Papers
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Chapter invited for Heike Brabandt, Bettina Ross and Susanne Zwingel. Marginalizing the Majority? (This book presents a postcolonial perspective on developments in the Global north and its relationships to the Global South). Suchman, Mark and Sarah Swider. Taking Notice: Public Perceptions of Health Care Privacy in the Wake of HIPAA (Preparing for Submission to Law and Society) Swider, Sarah. A Closer Look at Labor Market Intermediaries: The Labor Contracting System in China's Construction Industry, (Preparing for submission to The China Quarterly) Swider, Sarah: Gender and Migration: Helpless Victims and Perpetrators
of Violence (Preparing for submission to Gender and Society) |
| AWARDS 2003/2004 2000 |
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS), East Asian Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison The MacIntyre Teaching Assistant Award, School of Industrial Labor Relations, Cornell University ILR Summer Fellowship Travel Grant for summer research, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University |
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Teaching Experience: |
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| 2006 2000 |
Adjunct, Introduction to Sociology (101) Camden County College, Blackwood Campus. Blackwood, NJ. Teaching Assistant, Labor History 100-Introduction to U.S. Labor History, Cornell University. The MacIntyre Teaching Assistant Award, School of Industrial Labor Relations, Cornell University |
Research 2005-present
2002-2004
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Research Assistant for School of Industrial Labor Relations. Cornell University. Project: Labor Movement Coalitions. Conducted extensive literature review. Collected and categorized secondary data on cases of labor movement coalitions. |
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In the Field 2005-2006 Languages |
Madison, WI and Philadelphia, PA (Survey and Qualitative Interviews) |
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Presentations
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Swider, Sarah. The Construction of Illegality and Segmented Labor Markets. American Sociological Association 2007 Annual Meeting, Section on Political Economy of the World System. New York, August 13, 2007. Swider, Sarah. Political Considerations when Conducting Field Research in “less than democratic” Environments. Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) Summer Meeting, New York, August 11, 2007. Suchman, Mark and Sarah Swider. Taking Notice: Public Perceptions of
Health Care Privacy in the Wake of HIPAA. American Sociological Association
2007 Annual Meeting, Section on Sociology of Law. New York, August 11,
2007. Swider, Sarah: “Southeast Asian Women Workers in Hong Kong” Northern Illinois University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Student Conference on Southeast Asia. March 3-4, 2000. Nathan Lillie and Sarah Swider: “Trends and Developments in Transnational
Labor Cooperation in North America” Great Lakes Graduate Conference
in Political Economy, “The Contested Terrains of ‘Globalization’”
April 30-May 1, 1999. Binghamton University. |
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